Country
Haiti
From a standing Council file delivered mostly through a coalition voice, to leading a UN-authorized security mission alone, and a later reckoning with what it accomplished.
Haiti has been a standing item on the UN Security Council's agenda for years, under the mandate of the UN Integrated Office in Haiti (BINUH), tracking the country's long political and security crisis well before the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in July 2021 deepened it further. In the years since the assassination, armed gangs have extended control over large parts of the capital, Port-au-Prince, and the national police have struggled to contain the resulting violence.
By 2023 the crisis had become severe enough that Haiti's government asked the international community for help, and the UN Security Council responded by authorizing a multinational police support mission rather than a traditional peacekeeping force.
Kenya's engagement with this file predates the 2023 mission by more than two years, and for much of that time it was delivered through the A3+1 coalition (Kenya, Niger, Tunisia, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines) rather than by Kenya alone; more than one of the coalition's joint statements on Haiti was in fact delivered by Saint Vincent and the Grenadines' own ambassador.
In July 2023, Kenya volunteered to lead a mission itself, an unusual role for an African state: leading an international security deployment far outside the continent, in the Western Hemisphere, rather than in a regional or African context. The Security Council authorized it on 2 October 2023. The eight months between authorization and Kenya's first officers actually arriving in Haiti were shaped as much by a domestic Kenyan legal challenge as by anything happening in Haiti itself. The mission that eventually deployed has since been widely assessed by outside analysts as under-resourced relative to the scale of gang control it was meant to address.
Independent Sources for This Introduction
Canonical
Contemporary Reporting
- Kenya's High Court blocks proposal to send police support to Haiti — Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime
- Kenya court blocks deployment of police officers to Haiti — CNN
- First troop of Kenyan police officers arrive in Haiti — The Haitian Times
- Why Kenya volunteered to lead UN-approved forces to Haiti — Al Jazeera
Chronology
| 2021-02-22 | Statement | Haiti: A3+1 Statement Co-authored on behalf of Kenya as a member of the A3+1 (Kenya, Niger, Tunisia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines); delivered by H.E. Inga Rhonda King, Permanent Representative of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, on the coalition's behalf |
| 2021-06-17 | Statement | Haiti: A3+1 Statement Co-authored on behalf of Kenya as a member of the A3+1 (Kenya, Niger, Tunisia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines); delivered by H.E. Inga Rhonda King, Permanent Representative of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, on the coalition's behalf |
| 2021-07-07 | event | Assassination of President Jovenel Moïse President Moïse is assassinated at his residence in Port-au-Prince. Haiti has had no elected president since. The country's political vacuum and the expansion of armed gangs across the capital in the years that follow sharply deepen a crisis the Security Council was already seized of. |
| 2021-10-04 | Photograph | Security Council Meeting on Haiti (Council Presidency) |
| 2021-10-15 | Statement | Keynote Statement at the UN Security Council Arria-Formula Meeting on Haiti Convened by Kenya during its UN Security Council presidency month (Amb. Martin Kimani, Permanent Representative); keynote statement delivered by Amb. Macharia Kamau, Principal Secretary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, conveying President Uhuru Kenyatta's message |
| 2022-07-15 | Statement | BINUH Mandate Renewal: Statement on the Adoption of Resolution 2645 (2022) Kenya's national statement |
| 2022-09-26 | Photograph | Security Council Meeting on Haiti |
| 2022-09-26 | Statement | Haiti: A3 Statement Permanent Representative of Kenya to the United Nations, delivering on behalf of the A3 (Gabon, Ghana, Kenya) |
| 2022-10-17 | event | Kenya delivers a further A3 statement on Haiti Kenya again speaks on behalf of the A3 (Gabon, Ghana, Kenya), warning of a worsening security and humanitarian situation four days before the Council's sanctions vote. The session combined an open briefing with closed consultations, and which portion this statement belongs to is not confirmed, so it is recorded here as an event rather than a published statement. |
| 2022-10-21 | Statement | Haiti Sanctions Resolution: Explanation of Vote Permanent Representative of Kenya to the United Nations |
| 2022-12-21 | Statement | Haiti and the Haiti Sanctions Committee: Statement During Briefing Permanent Representative of Kenya to the United Nations |
| 2023-10-02 | event | UN Security Council authorizes the Multinational Security Support Mission Following Kenya's offer in July 2023 to lead a multinational police support mission, the Security Council adopts resolution 2699, authorizing deployment under Chapter VII of the UN Charter for an initial twelve months, thirteen votes in favor with Russia and China abstaining. The United States and Ecuador are the resolution's penholders. This is the Council's own act, not Kenya's; Kenya's response to it is a separate entry below. |
| 2023-10-02 | Photograph | Security Council Authorizes Multinational Security Support Mission in Haiti |
| 2023-10-02 | Statement | Haiti, Adoption of Resolution 2699: Statement to the UN Security Council Permanent Representative of Kenya to the United Nations |
| 2023-10-13 | event | Kenya's National Security Council and Cabinet approve deployment Kenya's own domestic machinery formally approves sending police officers to Haiti, following the Council's authorization eleven days earlier. A direct primary source for this specific date has not yet been retrieved this pass; it is drawn from secondary reporting and needs independent confirmation before being treated as fully settled. |
| 2023-11-16 | event | Kenya's Parliament unanimously endorses the deployment Parliament's endorsement clears the last domestic political hurdle before deployment, two and a half months before it would instead be stopped by a Kenyan court. As with the Cabinet approval above, a direct primary source for this date has not yet been retrieved this pass. |
| 2024-01-26 | event | Kenya's High Court blocks the deployment Justice Chacha Mwita rules, on a petition brought by opposition leader Ekuru Aukot, that President Ruto and the National Security Council lacked constitutional authority to deploy police officers abroad without a reciprocal agreement between Kenya and Haiti, and declares the planned deployment unconstitutional, null and void. This is a judicial act of the Kenyan state rather than its foreign policy establishment; it belongs here in full because it is the moment the story's momentum genuinely reverses. |
| 2024-03-01 | event | Kenya and Haiti sign a reciprocal agreement Interior Cabinet Secretary Kithure Kindiki and Haiti's Secretary-General of the Council of Ministers, Alix Richard, sign the bilateral agreement the High Court had ruled necessary, witnessed by President Ruto and Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry. This satisfies the court's objection and reopens the path to deployment. No independent confirmation has been found of any specific role Martin Kimani, by then still Kenya's Permanent Representative to the UN, played in securing this agreement; the signatories were Kenya's Interior Ministry and Haiti's government directly. |
| 2024-06-25 | event | First Kenyan police officers arrive in Port-au-Prince Two hundred of a planned one thousand Kenyan police officers land at Toussaint Louverture International Airport, the first physical deployment of the mission authorized eight months earlier. This happens one month after Martin Kimani's own tenure as Kenya's Permanent Representative to the UN ended; the mission's actual arrival in Haiti is not a moment in his own story, and the record says so plainly rather than straining to place him in it. |
| 2025-04-14 | Interview | Advocating for the Justice and Rights of People of African Descent Chair, UN Permanent Forum on People of African Descent |
| 2021-10-15 | Video | Video: UN Security Council Arria-Formula Meeting on Haiti Convened by Kenya during its UN Security Council presidency month (Amb. Martin Kimani, Permanent Representative); keynote delivered by Amb. Macharia Kamau, Principal Secretary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs |